applause thank you it is great to see such a robust crowd and energetic crowd, i have been a fan of them since inception, ten years ago i moderated my first about Climate Change so im happy to be back, im happy to introduce errol conway hes a historian of science and technology and the eco author merchants of doubt how a handful of scientists obscure the truth about tobacco smoke and global warming. Then we have the director of science and Society Research at the pm resort center and she offers reports about the public trust in science including views ranging from energy and climate to vaccines and gene and last but not least we have jeff from usc l. A. , hes a sociologist, he said he is why people care about what they care about and how moral concern relates to issues of science and religion, and went to john brian we are gathered this week during the anniversary of humankinds scientific achievements, you cant escape, the apollo moon landing to discuss this issue of whether and why americans are turning against science. I would like to start with the panelist by asking is this new or something long been with us . Has americas relationship with science been changing over time . I would like to ask erik to start . I asked for this start. People seem to think this idea that americans are turning against science is kind of new. But social Science Surveys that have been done for decades and one study from the 2012 dug into this idea of whether this is a new idea. Using the general sciences, social Science Survey data from 1974 to 2012. And in the works, it was founded that back in 1974, people were skeptical of science and people who defined themselves as political moderates. Which opened my eyes, im like, i would have never thought. People, were selfdefined conservatives and liberals thought about the same. And what has happened, the rules maintained the same level of trust and science. Moderates had the same distrust but just plummeted. So its far well below now what the moderate distrust is. Why does it happen and thinking about it has been the root of my work. During the actual apollo years of the 1960s, the general public opposed it. And didnt reach the majority approval and sixmonth window of that within that mission. We have rebranded it a Great Success but it was not appreciated by most of the public. It was an enormous amount of money. We dont think hard about this. But what apollo costs in todays dollars, 200 billion and another 250 billion on the missile program. People thought that was an enormous amount of money. There were race riots in the United States throughout the 1960s right around apollo and people said shouldnt we solve these problems on earth. Youre organization has studied science and peoples relationships with it for decades, from numerous post, looking at individual issues and science in general, can you talk about any trends you have seen or surprises that you and your colleagues have unearthed. Yes sure, so the Research Center has done Public Opinion surveys, i think i would like to step back a little bit and talk about the big picture things, number one most americans say when you asked them that they see positive benefits coming from science at the hole and number two you often see this idea of continued optimism for scientific and Technological Developments this based developments may be one of those but other things coming up now, people anticipate continue to change, when it comes to trust often we see more of a mixed pattern, and the whole people have at least a fair amount of confidence and scientists to act in the best interest of the public but its usually a minorities, certainly less than have that have what you might think of strong trust and they may have a great deal of confidence, a larger group has a fair amount of confidence, you might think of that as a soft positive, area greatly brought up we have one kind of survey they look said trust overtime from the 1970s to today, what is surprising there is that what they find confidence in scientists and the leaders of the Scientific Community has been stable over time and that is striking because we are living in an era of lower trust in institutions, particularly lower trust and governments today, that is striking any gives some people relief but stable does it necessarily mean high, there is still room to grow. When you look at different issues say when they use vaccines, it genetically modified food, climate, change or revolutions in schools are all those lumped together what you have people say that they are against science or other things. Its really important to remember that science is a vast enterprise and what we do is really study the pieces of science that are connecting with social issues or ethical issues or policy issues. Its not surprising them that they connect with our political divides and other kinds of divides in society but one of the Key Takeaways that we find again and again is how people think about these science related issues, whether climate related issues or vaccines or so on, there is no single group in society that takes but you might consider a position against the Scientific Consensus or skeptical of a Scientific Consensus spaces in, so it varies, we know that climate issues are highly politically polarized, that is not a big surprised but not everything is politically polarized, that is whats interesting. We are living in a time where we do have a lot of uncertainty in the future, we are looking at global climate, change we have these powerful tools and people or editing the genomes of human embryos and as you said some of these issues have Strong Political religious overtones, is it politics and religion that are polarizing people further, you studied fundamentalist christians, which do you do you see the simple religion versus science axis in your work . Thats a great question and by the way thank you so much everyone for coming out tonight, i really appreciate it, im used to teaching ucla undergraduate so the fact that this is a full crowd is that its a fine or in doing something differently so, yeah this is a great question, and it dovetails with what carrie was talking about, you know we find that there is not really a desire from any americans that we interview either qualitatively or quantitatively that dont like science, science won the game, of science is extremely popular in america and thats part of the problem because as a historian of science will tell you we dont actually know what science is if you talk to any sociologist or historian of science and you say theres a thing called science their head will explode, they will get very upset, because science is so chaotic they might not even think there is something called physics were biology, they are so diverse and there so many people doing different things, yet i found in my work in two creationist protestant and muslim high schools they were very comfortable talked about a thing called science, they were convinced signs proved evolution of rock, now i dont think thats true but i do think that it is interesting that they feel they need to use science to make their case, you can imagine another universe where they say this is what the corona says and thats it but they dont, so its interesting, when people hear the word creationist science the thing that they often hear is creationist and really what you need to here is science, they think science is necessary and that is actually super interesting for me as a sociologist and so to answer your question, you know we really think those of us that study this stuff, it really has to do with eight amenity and so basically there is a lot of complicated jargon on this but essentially if something is important for your identity you dont want to change your mind, if something is not important for your identity you will get new data and you will think okay, sure, i guess i will go there or all through this thing, but if its not relevant for your identity you were very unwilling to change and you actually think lots of complicated ways around trying to keep thinking what he wanted to think to maintain that piece of great entity, so generally when people dislike multiple elements of science its not because they are more or less committed to science its because those elements of science together all conflict with different parts of their identity. Stuff and not really aboutntity rational thinking or capacity to like understand or deal with science, and factoids of state these studies in my own work in creationists ghouls they did very well in science tests, they knew all the answers they just thought they were wrong. So, what do you do with that . So its a complicated problem. You maam, i think its such an interesting point you raise, what do people mean by science . Because its this big monolithic structure trusted or not trusted but you have written some provocative pieces, wine i recommend to everyone, titled a nation ruled by science is a terrible idea. Can you talk about some of your theses in there and what do we mean by science . I will say that if you want to have a nice day on twitter do not pick a fight from neil disgrace tyson. That is a poor human life choice, again i just got a leather secede from the chancellor of ucla how i should and be allowed to call myself a scientist or social scientist which is in a science, but that is kind of true but thats a whole separate conversation. The point is, science, there is this huge debate that goes all the way back, he goes back further than him, one of the most famous particulars of this is a philosopher david him who talks about the distinction between what is and what ought to be, there is big question of can you derive and heart from an is, can you drive all we should do based on what we can see . It is a complicated question and theres a lot of people with different thoughts on this, im pretty much in the school, which is a substantial school that you cant or at least its very hard, so if we have 1000 dollars as a city council and hopefully we get some more money but what can we do with that thousand dollars . Are you going to build a library, a park . Are we going to get a tax cut . Science can tell us what to do but they can tell us whether kids a better life outcomes whether they are in parks or libraries, maybe there is more jobs if we lowered taxes, that is a great bow whether or not the beauty of a park is intrinsically better then this sort of joy of all libraries on a scientific question and that is okay, right. But there is something that we call and philosophy of science that is scientists him, not science, but science and rational thinking will solve all or problems, it is frankly anti intellectual, it refuses to recognize the importance of philosophy and poetry and art, of all the literature and all the kinds of ways to think about life that science cant give us access to, it isnt to say that science is in great but it has a specific role to play. I think it also refuses to see that science can be manipulated to, for a lot of reasons, i want to look at Climate Change and that aspect, it seems to be a clear issue where they were upending the debate about what is happening to our planet and how quickly it is happening, here a cure book of doubt discusses this and can you talk a little bit about what you found with your coauthor between the length of that book came out because someone serendipity, my day job is an essay historian and asked me to look about a oceanography director who is a member of the Advisory Council and i was looking to see what his recommendations had been to nasa in the early 19 eighties as to whether Scientific Program should be in the future. I had some free time and i noticed that, i am sorry, i have something stuck in my throat. I hope that works, once before in my life i talk about mars and my voice went away ten minutes into the top and i set their gasping at the ceiling before i could get going again, so lets hope that doesnt happen and i just happened to note is that he had files of correspondence with this organization and that organization i knew of because it had been engaged in some effort to coats dowd on ozone depletion science, and i said what is this guy, the director of one of the major climate Research Center have to do with these guys, the answer is he was one of the founders. That actually was very toxic for me because i could watch and see his records, as a historian you see 20 years of a persons life go by an afternoon, so you can see as science and climate when one way he went the other way and so i met naomi ross case only a few weeks after that in a meeting at the history of meteorology in germany and she is working on, kind of the flip side another senior geophysicist by the name of Gordon Mcdonald who was very involved, he was an early adopter of Climate Change science and he went to his grave rejecting plate tectonics, just utterly rejected it, she was interested in what causes some scientists to accept the conclusion of their peers and what causes them to reject other conclusions, she will never answer that question because i think it depends very much on individuals upbringing and motivation and so forth, but then we got to talk about this issue for climate and one of us, we actually cant agree anymore which discovered the tobacco connection. She thinks i did, i think she, did we did agree to disagree, but then we have something new and ultimately our argument is that what drew them together for those of you have not read the, book is market fundamentalism. The idea that only unregulated free markets could best protect human freedom and that is kind of where we end to that story, along a complicated story but carrie can you talk, you mention this briefly these political acts, political influences that shape and change how people view science and i wonder and the time that ive been covering Climate Change weve got from getting both sides to increasing sophistication that one aside has manufactured and i think the general like what you hear is that humans are responsible for war maine the climate and we are seeing the effects of it in wildfires and glacial melting, that kind of. Vague have pools tracked the evolution thinking on Climate Change or have they been muddy it is still by political thinking on the topic. There are certainly lots of Public Opinion surveys about Climate Change energy and Environmental Issues and perhaps no surprise to that there is a wide political divide on these issues, so what you see is that republicans and democrats take totally different positions, including things like the likelihood of effects on wildlife and other kinds of things, so any kind of questions that you ask related to Environmental Issues you see this kind of divide, we have seen a divide like this, one thing you should keep in mind this is not the only political divide in society we are living in an era of political polarization, what we saw around, particularly around 2004 i think you start to see it where you saw the division in society across a whole range of political and social range wide enough, they called political polarization, at the typical democrat grew further apart from the issue positions of the typical republican and so we are living in an era that we all experience as more polarized and as you know its not just ideological positions that cell brought us there is this sense of animosity that goes as well. And then in the vaccine issued you see the liberals are less likely to vaccinate. We dont so beliefs about childhood vaccines, those are not associated with politics so that is one of the examples, if we are going to go into caveats today, you can find political divides particularly if you raise more policy oriented issues because at the end of the day there is a different policy orientation view about the role of government that drives a lot of these political divisions so if youre framing something in terms of should vaccines be required or not, that kind of raises the notion of government environment, so you are more likely to see that but Something Like our vaccines face, what are the risks and benefits, you do not see any political divide. Do either of you have anything to weigh, we have seen these huge measles outbreaks here in california and i think it seems to me that people are putting others at risk, babies, people with him unit disorders, the refusal to vaccinate remains a very strong opinion among sob. Is there religious reasons, at our know if you studied it particularly or if it has come up in your research . Certainly there is, there are verys religious communities that are opposed to vaccination. He no i would say that, this is not, i mean we are talking about the 19 seventies but this is a very old story, this is a nerd joke but yeah i tripe thing that an academic can do yeah but well this goes back to tokyo and there is this real suspicion of the 30 in the United States and one of the things that led to the second grade awakening in american religious history which is really the kind of, most obvious historical moment that led to the kinds of creationist evangelicals ive studied in this book, the second great awakening came out of the suspicion of ministers, who are they that tell them to read the vital viable, who wear them to tell me how to read the bible, i could redefine on my own and i dont need anyone to tell me how to do it. But historians point out is that this was not just about lawyers, it is really about medical doctors so there is a general suspicion of a leads in this real sense of you think youre better than me, so this is what he talked about in democracy of america, it has this kind of underbelly to it where theres an obsession with a quality and has this lovely effect but it also has this dangerous effect and that it insists on an intellectual equality, such that expertise is suspicious, who are you to tell me the vaccines are not, true i know it is good for my baby. That is not just a religious thing, it is a very old american sensibility that, in some ways predates the jack sony an arab it was very important in the 1800s. Authority is very important, i have seen polls where trusted professionals, firefighters are the pinnacle, but scientists are